In The Unfinished Revolution: Coming of Age in a New Era of Gender, Work, and Family, New York University sociology professor, Kathleen Gerson, draws upon extensive ethnographic research to explore the new attitudes towards work and family. Gerson conducted in-depth interviews with 120 men and women between the ages of 18 and 32 from a wide variety of family backgrounds. Yet despite their diversity, common themes emerged. “In contrast to the popular claim that this generation feels neglected by working mothers, unsettled by parental breakups, and wary of equality, they express strong support for working mothers and much greater concern with the quality of the relationship between parents than whether they stayed together or separated.”

"Coming of age in an era of more fluid marriages, less stable work careers, and profound shifts in mothers' ties to the workplace shaped the experiences of a new generation. Compared to their parents or grandparents, they are more likely to have lived in a home containing either one parent or a co-habitating but unmarried couple and to have seen married parents break up or single parents remarry. They are more likely to have watched a stay-at-home mother join the workplace or an employed mother pull back from work when the balancing act got too difficult. And they are more likely to have seen their financial stability rise or fall as a household's composition changed or parents encountered unexpected shifts in their job situations."

"In the end, whether or not a mother held a paid job matters far less than whether or not mothers and fathers were satisfied with their lives and with the life they were able to provide for their children."